Forrester

Why Read This Report

Over the past year, client inquiry questions have evolved from "What is cloud?" to "What vendors should I consider?" This market overview examines the landscape of vendors providing solutions designed to accelerate the implementation of an infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) cloud in a customer's data center. Several standard criteria and a selection of differentiating factors are examined. All the solutions evaluated provide the core IaaS functions: self-service, standardization, automation, and pay-per-use. In this market we found five solution types emerging: 1) enterprise systems management vendors; 2) OS/hypervisor vendors; 3) converged infrastructure solutions; 4) pure-play cloud solutions; and 5) grid-derived solutions. Each brings the core IaaS features as well as unique differentiating value.